


99 Problems

by titaniumsporkery



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, not quite noncon but if you're squeamish I wouldn't risk it?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:40:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titaniumsporkery/pseuds/titaniumsporkery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur has a lot of problems, and there's this one bitch who's causing most of them. In this, their hardest of missions, Arthur needs to focus, but he can't because Eames keeps dredging up old memories he doesn't want to relive. (not quite noncon but if you're squeamish I wouldn't risk it?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Some Days Nothing Will Make You Feel As Good As Killing

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic I started a really long time ago and kept forgetting to finish so I'm posting what I have so far and seeing if it's worth finishing.

“I’ve got to talk to Eames”

“Eames?” Arthur frowned, and shifted uneasily. He did not want to see Eames. Not now. Not again. Not ever. “But he’s in Mombasa; Cobol’s backyard.”

Cobb didn’t seem to notice: “Necessary risk.”

Arthur closed his eyes, trying to force the images floating through his mind out. “There are plenty of other thieves."

“We don’t just need a thief. We need a forger.”

_The black dress sitting low on her shoulders, her silken thighs warm against his hands, her lips wet against his. Arthur blinked, and there he was. Grinning, laughing at him._

Arthur shook his head like a dog trying to dislodge water from his ears. He opened his mouth to come up with an excuse, a retort, anything, but Cobb had left. He sat down and picked up the file on Fischer, intending to study it. By the time Ariadne arrived a couple of hours later, he hadn’t read a word of it, and each time he looked at a picture it had morphed first into a woman in a black dress, and then that cocksure grin that Arthur wished he couldn’t picture so vividly.

*

Unfortunately that meant that when the whole team was together a few days later, Arthur had no idea what the job was, who the mark was, or what exactly it is they were doing, and consequently was very little help to anyone.

It of course, didn’t help that the person he was very much trying to wish away was the one doing most of the talking. It took every ounce of Arthur’s concentration to in turns ignore Eames and concentrate on what he was saying (but not anything else about him). Listening to Eames talk was a constant battle of mind over matter for Arthur that consisted of his subconscious shouting things like _look at the board not his face, and actually listen to what he’s saying, don’t stare._

“Now, in the dream, I can impersonate Browning and suggest the concepts to Fischer’s conscious mind. Then, we take Fischer down another level and his own subconscious feeds it right back to him.”

Arthur’s barely-there brain figured this was a good point to contribute, but didn’t get round to saying anything useful: “So he gives _himself_ the idea.” Oh well, compliments were as good as contributions for Eames, anyway.

Eames grinned broadly in the way that made Arthur want to have a psychotic break and stitch Eames’ mouth shut. While it was entirely possible that Eames was just glad for the compliment (he was), Arthur always felt like that smile was mocking him, judging him.

“Precisely,” Eames drawled along with that disgusting smile of his, “That’s the only way to make it stick. It has to seem self-generated.”

“Eames, I’m impressed.” Arthur had totally lost control of his mouth. He wanted nothing more than to slap himself, and then to run off screaming and find a nice girl to settle down with so that he could stop picturing Eames’ horrific grin and the fact that he actually wanted to see it.

That in and of itself was insane. Why would Arthur want to see Eames at all, never mind his gaping, toothy maw opening up at him? He should be angry--was angry. But that anger had a terrible way of dissolving into something else that consisted mostly of a mental picture of a lady in a black dress (and occasionally in some of his worse dreams, Eames in that black dress), and an unsettling feeling of heat pooling in his stomach.

Arthur was particularly uncomfortable with that. It’s not that he cared whether he was attracted to men or not (though he’d be quick to assure that he wasn’t if asked), it’s just that he wasn’t attracted to Eames. He really wasn’t. The only time he and Eames were interacting in a remotely sexual light he didn’t know it was Eames. And he had been taken advantage of in his tired, weakened state. It was sexual harassment, rape, even.

(Arthur had even contemplated going to see the police, but there was the matter of it having happened in a dream, which very few people would take seriously, and the fact that the dream had been induced by some pretty illegal substances. But the fact remained that Eames had impersonated a woman and seduced Arthur, and then sat there, on top of Arthur, and laughed at him. Laughed! Like it was a joke!)

Arthur felt his face redden and flush, and he resisted the urge to hit himself again.

“Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur.”

Arthur had no idea what Eames was talking about.


	2. Like A Bullet To Your Brain

They went down, hurtling through consciousness into the dream. Entering a dream always gave Arthur a sick sort of feeling and a vague headache that meandered about his head.

The first level was straightforward. Well, straightforward insofar as the client being shot and your boss screaming at you for not finding security that the mark shouldn’t have had. That kind of straightforward. And Arthur really really didn’t like the way Eames was talking to him. And winking at him. And generally being smug and teasing and annoying. And calling him ‘darling’. (A small, deeply rational part of him kept suggesting that that was Eames’ normal behavior towards pretty much everyone. That small, deeply rational part of Arthur was unanimously ignored by the rest of him, and he pretty much spent the few hours that they were hunkered down in that shed being a surly little bitch.)

Then it was everybody get in the truck and Yusuf’s shitty driving and quick push the button and let’s hope the kick works, and Arthur could have sworn as he fell asleep Eames had grabbed his hand. (But he wouldn’t have sworn that because that would have been admitting to himself he was okay with it.)

*  
Arthur really wished Eames would change her face. Or at least the dress. It was incredibly difficult to concentrate with her right there, with her gleaming curls and her gorgeous hips and the way that Eames took opportunities where Fischer wasn’t paying attention to glance over his shoulder and make her _wink_ at Arthur.

Arthur shook his head, noticed Ariadne, who was sitting next to him, was looking at him quizzically, and decided to redirect.  
“And there goes Mr Charles,” he said.

Ariadne mercifully dropped it, “Who or what, exactly, is Mr Charles?”

“It’s a gambit designed to turn Fischer against his own subconscious. oh.” The latter being more of a huff of breath than anything, as Eames-as-the-girl-in-the-black-dress had gotten up, and was walking across his line of vision as exaggeratedly as was humanly possible, swishing her hips from side to side and generally just making it really hard for Arthur to think straight.  
Arthur began to knead his temples. He needed to be on top of things at this point because it was quickly becoming his turn to act. Ariadne seemed to miss this:

“And why don’t you approve?” she asked.

Arthur took his hands away from his head, and looked at her. “Because it involves telling the mark that he’s dreaming. Which involves attracting a lot of attention to us.”

“Didn’t Cobb say never to do that?”

“Oh, so you’ve noticed how much time Cobb spends doing things he says never to do.” He grinned.

The wind picked up against the windows and the gravity shifted subtly. It had been doing that since they had arrived in the dream, but for the first time, the inhabitants of the dream seemed to notice, staring first at the windows, then at Arthur. He wondered where Eames was.

Ariadne shifted in her seat and kept glancing around skittishly. “What’s happening?”

“Cobb’s drawing Fischer’s attention to the strangeness of the dream,” Arthur spoke slowly, trancelike, “That’s making his subconscious look for the dreamer. For me.” An instinct flashed through his gut, slicing through the mire of his (Eames-related) thoughts. He took it. “Quick, kiss me.” He pressed his lips into Ariadne’s more roughly than was really necessary, but she didn’t seem to mind. Arthur felt nothing.

As Ariadne pulled away, there was a smile playing about her face. “Did it work?”

  
 _No, it didn't._ What was wrong with him? She was pretty, she was intelligent, she was friendly, she was clearly interested in him, and he was still thinking about Eames. Arthur sighed. “It was worth a shot,” he said, and he wasn’t talking about the fact that all of Fischer’s projections were still looking at him, but staring into a patch of floor and realizing something that he’d been holding back for over a year. _Maybe he really did care about Eames._ (His sense of self and propriety wouldn’t allow him to put it any more strongly than that, though it was stronger.)

When he resurfaced from his reverie, and glanced at his watch, Arthur realized they needed to go immediately. He told Ariadne this, and as he led her to the hotel room Cobb wanted them in, he barely noticed her slipping her hand into his.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eames confronts Arthur. Idiocy ensues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of a half-chapter than anything. Just reminding myself this exists, and that I do want to eventually finish it.

Arthur cradled his head in his hands, massaging his temples. This had to be the hardest mission he'd ever been on; to have pulled off an inception was nothing short of miraculous, and it really hadn't helped that he wasn't functioning at full capacity. It was totally unprofessional, and even childish to have been so affected by a joke. And it was a joke. Eames probably wouldn't have done it if he knew the effect it would have, and it shouldn't have had an effect. Arthur couldn't believe that of all people he was letting get to him, it was Eames who--was coming towards him.

Arthur had just happened to look up mid-thought, and there Eames was, grease-haired (Arthur's own hair, of course, was not greasy, but stylish) and dumb-shirted and picking his way along the rocky river bank to the rock that Arthur was sitting on. Arthur put his face back in his hands and stifled a frustrated whimper.

"Hey, man, are you okay? You've been a bit off for the whole mission, are you doing alright?"

Arthur didn't reply, and simply levelled the best glare he could muster back at Eames (it was a pretty weak glare all things considered).

"Arthur?"

"I'm fine go away."

"You don't sound fine," Eames' eyes had genuine concern in them, and for the first time since the Dress Incident, Arthur felt guilty. And it only made him angrier.

"Seriously, Eames. Just fuck off. I was fine before your ugly ass walked up and started bothering me, and I'll be fine again once you've left."  _And after you get rid of that stupid fucking black dress._

"Dress? What dress? Arthur I'm not wearing a dress. Seriously, I'm concerned." Arthur felt his jaw go slack and his eyes widen. He didn't say that out loud. He knew he hadn't. That was a thought in his head. It was. Except it obviously wasn't, said the one remaining coherent part of his brain, because Eames heard it, and he's not psychic.

"I didn't say anything about a dress, Eames, go get your ears checked."

"Yes. You did. You said "get rid of that stupid fucking black dress." And I'm not wearing any dress, let alone a black one. ... Oh, oh hold on a minute." Eames' face seemed to split, so widely and quickly did the world's most ridiculously shit-eating grin appear on his face. "Arthur. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. Are you still upset about that? It was a joke, mate, come on."

A wave of fury surged through Arthur's body, propelling him onto his feet. "Yeah I'm still fucking angry," he shouted hysterically, not noticing or caring that everyone else could probably hear him. "It was inappropriate and sexual harassment, and borderline fucking date rape. No, not borderline. That's what it was."

"Nice voice break there, buddy, but for it to have been date rape, we'd have to have been on an actual date, and we'd have had to have actually had sex. And neither of those things happened." Eames' smile contorted into a smirk. "Of course, both of those things can be arranged, all you have to do is ask nicely."

"NO, I'M NOT GOING TO ASK NICELY. YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE I DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO FUCK YOU." Arthur stopped to take a breath and glanced around warily. Ariadne was looking at him with an indecipherable expression on her face halfway between disappointment and mirth, and Cobb was glaring.

There was a soft, warm pressure at his cheek, and a breath at his ear. "Think about it, will you?" Arthur whipped around, only to nearly have his nose collide with Eames' retreating cheek. Eames chuckled softly and walked off, leaving Arthur blushing and furious in his wake.

"Oh, and you might want to go apologize to Cobb. If Fisher's figured out who we are we're all fucked."


End file.
